AS Parking/Gladstone - CCJ received whilst living abroad

BoulderC

Hi,


I've been reading through this forum and hope somebody can help.



I've just been notified that a county court judgement has been made against me for £224 (£144 claim, £50 solicitor cost, £25 court cost) for a parking charge from AS Parking relating to a charge on 28/12/2014. In short, the parking space was located on a holiday park. However, I was unable to buy a ticket from the holiday park as their reception was closed (the park closes over winter but leaves its gates open to allow people access to the beach).

I received numerous letters from AS Parking and debt collectors threatening court action but it all went quiet after a year. Rightly or wrongly I chose to ignore all of the letters.

I then moved to the USA on 13th May 2016. I am working here for at least one year. Prior to leaving for the USA I updated the DVLA to provide them with a new UK address.This is a forwarding address, where all mail is the forwarded to me in the USA.


A County Court Claim dated 4th August 2016 was sent to my old address, despite the new address being available with the DVLA. My old address is now rented out (i own it but have not resided there since 10 May 2016). The property is managed by a lettings agent but they failed to forward me any post for two months until now, despite me asking. I was therefore unable to reply to the 4th August claim, and now have a county court judgement against my name.

I now have nine days remaining to pay the judgement before it’s registered against my record. I have a few questions that I hope somebody can help me with:

• · Firstly, can I apply to have the judgement set aside as it was sent to the wrong address (solicitor or debt collector had every opporunitity to check the new address with DVLA)? I've read that setting aside can cost £255, so more than the actual judgement, so unsure if it's even worth it.

• · Does living abroad help my case? I have no way of attending another court hearing, neither would I have been able to defend the first claim.

• · Does the fact the holiday park reception was closed help my case? I understand there’s an argument that as the reception was closed I could have decided not to park there, but interested to hear if there’s anybody else who’s successfully defended.

Thanks in anticipation. Any help you can offer is hugely appreciated.

Northlakes

An article in today's Daily Mail has highlighted this issue.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3784421/Stranger-s-40-parking-ticket-cost-family-new-home.html

Look at having a judgement set aside's on here and Pepipoo.

Even if a judgement is set aside you still have to defend the case at a further hearing. Not easy to do at this stage as signage may have changed and the evidence needed may not be available.
Not impossible, but you may need to swallow a bitter pill in this case and pay up to get this off your back.

Umkomaas

Some other reading:

http://casehub.com/cases/parking-eye-ccj-fines

https://www.nationaldebtline.org/EW/factsheets/Pages/howtosetasideacountycourtjudgment/settingasideaccj.aspx

https://www.gov.uk/county-court-judgments-ccj-for-debt/overview

The_Deep

That figure of £154 looks decidedly iffy, read this, (post number 7),

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/71202709#Comment_71202709

Make a very strong complaint to the SRA about the solicitor involved, and, if you think that they are at fault, the DVLA.

http://www.sra.org.uk/consumers/problems/report-solicitor.page

email [EMAIL="Duncan.allen@sra.org.uk"]Duncan.allen@sra.org.uk[/EMAIL]

fisherjim

The parking company would only apply for your details once from the DVLA, they then sent you the NTK and all the other paperwork was received at your address in the UK which you ignored.

Why are you then blaming the DVLA (who never got any more enquiries) or indeed anyone else for the fact that you didn't get a re-direct set up with the post office?

Grimble

Try Legal Beagles.

Coupon-mad

I agree Legal Beagles forum is an option.

And send a copy of this to Sir Oliver Weald and Theresa May and ask how it is OK for ex-clamper notorious industry to 'credit clamp' by using YEARS old address data when the DVLA has the right data?

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/71294781#Comment_71294781

Don't talk about 'who parked/what happened' or why you ignored it - just concentrate on the industry being rotten and the effect the fact the 'system' allows these despicable firms to 'credit clamp' (instead of car clamp) has just had on you. The more of these being posted snail mail to physically land on someone's desk (advisers, who cares, it will be noticed) the better.